Central Board of Film Certification
The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is the regulatory body and censorship board of India. It reviews film, television ads, and promotional material.
It is quite similar to the MPAA of USA. However, the rating system of the CBFC is different from that of the MPAA. Promotional materials and TV ads are also censored by the CBFC.
According to the Supreme Court of India:
| “ | Film censorship becomes necessary because a film motivates thought and action and assures a high degree of attention and retention as compared to the printed word. The combination of act and speech, sight and sound in semi darkness of the theatre with elimination of all distracting ideas will have a strong impact on the minds of the viewers and can affect emotions. Therefore, it has as much potential for evil as it has for good and has an equal potential to instill or cultivate violent or good behaviour. It cannot be equated with other modes of communication. Censorship by prior restraint is, therefore, not only desirable but also necessary | ” |
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Vijay Anand was chairman from 2001 until his resignation in 2002. After that, Anupam Kher also worked for the CBFC. Sharmila Tagore is the present chairman of the CBFC.
The rating system they have incorporated is as follows:
- U : Universal (or Unrestricted): This rating is given to a movie which has no objectionable material. A movie which has a rating of U contains no or minor violence and sensuality.
- U/A : Unrestricted with adult accompiament. This rating is given to a movie which contains mild violence, language and sensuality. The movie may contain some material unsuitable for children under 12.
- A : Adults: This rating is given to a movie which contains extreme violence, sexuality (including nudity), frightening images and language.
- This rating is similar to R of the MPAA; however some PG-13 films, like The Da Vinci Code have been given this rating
- S : Special: This rating is very rare. This rating indicates that the movie is only for special class.
The certificate issued by the board is usually shown as a still image at the beginning of a movie. The advertisements shown in a movie theater are also classified and the certificate is shown before their screening. The policy regarding movie trailers is not clear.
CBFC has been several times criticised for minor or very low enforcement in censoring the "A" rated movies for broadcasting in TV channels. In 2006, CBFC declared that no A rated movie should be broadcasted in daytime, without appropriate editing. Since the late eighties, the censor board has become more tolerant of explicit scenes. Earlier, even an "A" movie could not contain any sexual scenes. The censorship in mainstream movies is usually self-imposed by the film producers, or due to the traditional nature of the cast, explicit scenes (e.g. lip-to-lip kissing) used to be extremely rare. There is a marginal adult movie industry in India which does not show frontal nudity. This shows also lack of enforcement in CBFC's main objective - "scenes showing sexual perversions shall be avoided and if such matters are germane to the theme they shall be reduced to the minimum and no details are shown"[1]. However, mainstream cinema is still today highly censored, but small budget and "B" grade movies are sometimes not even censored.
